 Rincón's Arte garnered important “firsts”
at publication: The first published work by a mestizo, the first published
indigenous-language work written by a native speaker, and the first work in
an indigenous language of Mexico written by a Jesuit.

Born a generation and a half after the completion of the conquest of Mexico,
Antonio del Rincón (1556–1601) was a mestizo native of
Texcoco, a descendant of the tlaloque (the nobility of Texcoco). Nahuatl
was his native language and so too was Spanish. He entered the Jesuit order
at Teopoztlán in August of 1573, the year after the Jesuits arrived
in Mexico, and saw his Nahuatl grammar published by Balli in 1595.

This grammar is held in the same esteem as those of Andrés de Olmos and Alonso de
Molina, for comprehending Nahuatl as it was spoken in the post-Conquest period. Among
scholars of the 17th century it remained in constant demand, not to be eclipsed until the 1645
appearance of the work of a later Jesuit, i.e., Father Carochi.

The title-page and preliminaries occupy the first eight leaves here, followed
by an author's prologue on fols. [1r–v, 2r], with the grammar filling
fols. [2v]–78r. A dictionary of all Nahuatl words used in the
grammar begins on fol. 78v and continues on the next 18 leaves.

The text is printed in roman and bears eight woodcut initials, five of which are
historiated. The title-page has a large woodcut of the Jesuit logo, one of the first instances of that
device's appearing on a book in Mexico. The printer, Pedro Balli, was a native of Salamanca and
seems to have arrived in Mexico in 1569 or slightly later, as a bookseller. By 1574 he was
involved in printing, becoming the fifth printer of record in New Spain.